Love Me for Me
by HermioneGirl96
Summary: When Sirius slips Lily a love potion to make her finally fall for James, James is furious. He wants Lily to love him, but only if it's genuine-and he's sure that's never going to happen. Major James/Lily fluff. A one-shot.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or his parents or any of the many wonderful relationships, back-stories, or subplots thought up by the ingenious imagination of J. K. Rowling.**

"You know I hate you, right?" I asked idly, feeling inexplicably exhausted as I was coming back from dinner and found myself awkwardly wedged next to James. We were both trying to make our way through the unusually thick crowd in front of the entrance to Gryffindor tower.

There was a sigh from beside me. "Yeah, I know."

"Okay, good. Sometimes I think you've forgotten," I continued. The words flowed from me easily, like water from a pitcher; my brain and my mouth seemed, at best, very loosely connected. I probably should have taken this as a bad sign and shut up, but I was too tired to care.

"Well, you do sometimes act like we're friends," James pointed out. "You help me with my charms homework sometimes, and I definitely wouldn't be passing potions without you. And we haven't fought in a while, and we both hang around Moony and we're part of the same conversations pretty often and that seems to go okay. So sometimes I do forget that you hate me."

"Well, I hate you. You really bother me," I told him.

"Still?" James asked a bit desperately. "I've been trying so hard to act mature for you—I thought it was working! I'm not hexing people all the time anymore, it's been nearly a _year_ since I last attacked Snape, and I even pay attention in class about half the time! Why do I still bother you?" Perhaps James, too, was tired. He very rarely went off at me like this, and he'd never before tried to tell me the ways in which he was trying to win me over.

And come to think of it, what he said made sense.

Merlin, he really _had _matured this year.

"Hey, you're right," I noted, still speaking without really thinking. "You _are_ more mature than you used to be."

James looked at me in shock. "_You _just said that?"

"Yeah, I did. You're right, you know. You matured."

Just then we reached the portrait hole and I failed to get through it into the common room. I tripped and fell flat on my face.

"Merlin, Lily, are you all right?" James asked, offering me a hand to help me up.

I took the hand and just wound up pulling him to the ground. I wouldn't have thought I could do that—James, after all, played Quidditch, whereas I was about as far from athletic as it was possible to get, and I was also a lot smaller than he was—but apparently I could pull James over.

James stood up, grabbed me under the armpits, and set me on my feet. "Are you okay?" he asked me again.

I looked at him, slightly confused. "I don't think so, no. I'm really tired and apparently I can't get through the portrait hole, which I haven't had issues with since my first few weeks as a first year. And I thought you were right about stuff, which isn't something I normally think. I feel kind of groggy, actually . . ." I slumped forward and probably would have hit the floor again if James hadn't caught me. But he did catch me, and he held me, and it felt nice. His arms were so _very _comfortable and I was so _very _tired.

"Padfoot!" James shouted at the top of his lungs. He had a really terrifying yell, especially with his head right next to my ears.

"Yeah?" Sirius's voice came from somewhere in front of James, but I couldn't see him because my head was in James's chest and my eyes seemed to have drifted closed. There seemed to be laughter; I wasn't sure if it was Sirius laughing, or Remus, or someone else.

"What did you put in Lily's drink?" James demanded, deadly serious. "'Cause whatever you did, it isn't funny."

"What do you mean?" Even _I_, in my groggy state, could hear the lack of sincere confusion in Sirius's voice.

"Lily's acting all . . . loopy. Groggy. It's weird," James explained with steel in his tone. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing much," Sirius answered slyly.

"Shut up and tell me!" James ordered.

"Both?" Sirius asked playfully. "I don't think I can do both."

"THIS ISN'T FUNNY!" James roared at a truly terrifying volume. I crumpled to the ground at the sound of the yell, incapable of standing or even continuing to lean into James. "PADFOOT I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!" I felt robes brush across my legs as James stepped over me, and then there were thuds, presumably as James tried to beat Sirius up.

"James—Prongs—geroff—it's okay," Sirius managed between the sounds of James punching him. "It was—a love potion—side effect—drowsiness. I was—just—trying—to help."

"Yeah, and a fat lot of good that did!" James yelled. "The first thing she said was 'I hate you' and now she's passed out on the floor! Besides, I don't want her to fall for me _artificially_! I want her to love me for _me_ or not love me at all!" The sounds of blows stopped. "Well, no, I guess I just want her to love me for me. But not artificially!"

"That rhymed," Sirius pointed out annoyingly.

"Padfoot I hate you!" James shouted. "Are you incapable of taking _anything _seriously? _I. Love. Her._ Why don't you take a minute to understand that? Figure out what it means? That it means I want her to be happy and okay and intact, even at expense to myself? That it means I want her to fall for me genuinely, and I'm going to keep trying to win her over _by honest means_ for as long as I possibly can without her _actually_ hexing me into oblivion?"

"All you think about is Lily!" Sirius responded, suddenly turning serious. His passion, it seemed, now matched James's. "I was just trying to help you! I want Lily to fall for you but I also want you to shut up about her and how she rejects you and breaks your heart and you're never going to have her! I don't want you to be hurt and honestly I don't want to _hear_ about you being hurt, either. I've had enough of that!"

"Well then you can stop listening to me," James said bitterly.

My drowsiness suddenly wore off. I stood up without feeling even a trace of fatigue or confusion. All at once, the only thing I wanted to do was kiss James Potter.

"Lily?" James asked, seeing me stand.

"James," I replied, staring dreamily at him.

"Lily, this is the potion's effect on you, and I'm not going to take advantage of you because of it," James told me. "I'm going up to my dormitory now, and don't try to follow me." He looked at Sirius. "When does the potion wear off?"

"It lasts about eight hours, starting when it's taken, so it's probably got about seven now," Sirius appraised. "By the time you both get up in the morning, it'll be long gone."

James nodded, accepting the information. Merlin, he was handsome. So strong . . . and his hair was so cute the way it was messed up all over the place . . . and his eyes—how had I never noticed his eyes? I could get lost in those eyes, so lost that I would never be able to find my way out.

James put a hand on my shoulder, pulling me out of my love-struck thoughts. "Lily, I'm leaving now, and I want you to focus on other things while I'm gone. I don't want you to follow me at all. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?"

"Don't go," I pleaded.

"Lily, I have to go. You'll regret the things we do if you let me do anything with you while you're under the influence of that love potion," James told me gently. "I'll see you in the morning." With that, James left, giving Sirius a hard punch on the way out.

"He left," I said blankly to Sirius. Then, to my great shock, I started crying.

"Merlin," Sirius remarked as he watched me sob. "I didn't think it would go like this. I never should have given you that potion."

"Does James still love me?" I asked Sirius hopelessly, feeling lost in the absence of the boy who had been asking me out for so long, the boy whom I so suddenly loved.

"Good Merlin, yes," Sirius answered angrily. "He never shuts up about you. EVER."

I smiled through my tears. "That's really sweet."

"Try really _annoying,_" Sirius countered, sounding very displeased.

"How could James ever be annoying?" I asked.

"Merlin, _you're_ asking _that_? Did I give you a triple dose of the potion or something? I must have. You've spent the past six _years_ calling James annoying, Lily—_and_ a lot worse than annoying. The rest of us don't hate him like you, but that doesn't mean we never agreed with you. You were right about a lot of the stuff you said about him—you were just _way_ too harsh. But he _is_ completely annoying," Sirius told me.

"I don't think so," I said. "I wonder if he forgives me for everything I said about him. I—"

"I'm _leaving_!" Sirius interrupted me. "I can't handle both of you being lovesick in the same day."

I went to bed early that night, thinking about James until I fell asleep. He was so amazing . . . I was so lucky that he was in love with me . . .

The next morning, I awoke with a headache and tried to figure out why. Then I groaned. Sirius had given me a love potion so that I'd fall in love with _James Potter_, who I'd only been rejecting for _six years now_, and I'd made a complete fool of myself in front of Merlin-knew-_how_-many Gryffindors while acting completely in love.

Come to think of it, what _was_ so bad about James? He was really sweet, actually—in love with me, nice to me—he'd matured a lot, and he didn't want me to fall for him artificially. He was even willing to fight his best friend over my right to choose whom I loved, even if that meant not choosing him. He was fundamentally not selfish—really admirable, actually. And the thing I'd long hated most about him—the way he treated Severus—had changed recently. It had been a long time since the Marauders picked on Severus, and meanwhile Severus had been acting more and more like a jerk. All in all, I really couldn't hold much against James anymore.

Maybe it was time to stop rejecting him.

Actually, it was definitely time to stop rejecting him

I dressed hurriedly—James frequently told me I looked nice, and his assessment seemed entirely unrelated to what I was wearing or whether I had put on makeup or done anything with my hair, so I didn't feel the need to worry too much about how I looked—and rushed down to the common room. James wasn't known for getting up early, but I figured that today of all days he might be in the common room ahead of his usual schedule.

I was right; James was sitting alone on a couch in the common room, a textbook open in his lap.

"James?" I whispered, coming to sit beside him. "I need to talk to you."

"Yeah?" he whispered back. "Don't worry about last night. It's okay. I know you didn't mean any of it. Sirius put a love potion in your drink and he's been . . . dealt with. Suffice it to say he won't do it again."

"That's not what I was worried about," I replied.

James looked a bit worried and immediately started apologizing. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't assume. Last night never happened. Of course. Sorry to bring it up. What did you want to talk about?"

"I . . . James, do you still love me?"

Surprise quickly transfigured his expression before he was able to conceal it. "With all my heart, Lily. Always," he swore. Then he added hurriedly, "But you don't need to worry about that. Find someone to love, and be happy. Or be single, if you'd prefer it. Do whatever you want. I won't chase you anymore, I promise. I'm over that. I know you'll never be mine and I don't want to make you unhappy by just asking you out. I know it annoyed you and I thought maybe, if you ever started caring about me as a friend, it might hurt you or make you uncomfortable to think I love you. So don't worry about it. Please."

"What if I want to?" I asked.

"What?" James asked in confusion.

"What if I want to think about you loving me? What if I . . . if I . . ." I couldn't for the life of me have explained _why_ I was scared to say it, but quite honestly I was terrified. I'd been rejecting him for so long, and the idea of doing anything else was so foreign to me. Besides, it was so hard to say 'yes' if there wasn't a question being asked.

James leaned forward and put his head in his hands. "Don't go there, Lily, please. I know you don't mean it. Please don't get my hopes up." Through his hands, I heard a sigh. "You have every right to tear my heart to pieces—it's yours and you can do as you wish with it—but I'm begging you, please, please don't do this."

I took one of the hands that was in front of his face and pulled it down, lacing my fingers through his as I did so. "James, I have no intention of tearing you heart to pieces." He shifted his hand, holding mine more firmly, when I said this. Then he lowered his other hand so that he could shoot me an incredulous stare. "Please . . . ask me out so I can say yes?" I asked him. Why was I so nervous? James was so sweet. I knew he'd take care of me as well as he possibly. What in Merlin's name did I have to fear? He wouldn't hurt me; quite the opposite. Yet somehow I was still worried—worried that he'd reject me the way I'd rejected him ten thousand times.

James's face bore the ghost of a smile. "If you're sure," he sighed. Then he muttered, "Might as well do it properly." With great formality, he cleared his throat and said, "Lily Azalea Evans, you're the most wonderful girl I've ever met. I've loved you for four years now and I would follow you to the ends of the Earth. Will you please do me the extreme honor of allowing me to call you my girlfriend?"

For some reason, the way he loved me made me want to cry, but instead I whispered, "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes."

James grinned more widely than I'd ever seen him grin before in my life. It seemed he hadn't believed until then that I was actually sincere about wanting him. "Lily, thank you so much. This is the best moment of my life," he whispered back. I saw longing in his face, maybe more than he'd ever let me see before, but he didn't ask to hold me, to let him kiss me, anything.

So I leaned in and kissed him of my own volition. He was an excellent kisser, at least in my opinion—though, as I'd never kissed a guy before, I probably wasn't a good judge. In any event, I was pleased with the kiss. When we finally drew back, James's grin told me that he was pleased, too.

"Lily, you're perfect," he murmured, smoothing my hair. "I love you so much."

I smiled. "Really?" Somehow I felt like it was too good to be true.

"Really," James replied, kissing me.

**A/N: Please review! **


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